ey Takeaways: In the hybrid work era, workplace design has become a key talent retention tool, with facilities needing to offer flexible, comfortable and collaborative environments that give employees a compelling reason to come into the office. High-impact workplace improvements often focus on employee experience, including varied work settings, biophilic design, wellness features and thoughtfully designed shared spaces such as breakrooms, lobbies and outdoor areas. Facility managers can strengthen retention strategies by using occupancy, utilization and employee feedback data to identify underperforming spaces, guide targeted improvements and measure results through business metrics such as turnover rates and employee satisfaction. Ask any CEO what keeps them up at night, and talent will be near the top of the list.
Read This » Makerspace Movement Gives Facility Managers Hiring Optionsurely, we do not have to inform facility managers that there is a serious challenge finding qualified skilled workers at institutional and commercial facilities.
Read This » What Facility Managers Need to Know About 2027 Water Heater Regulationsey Takeaways: New DOE commercial water-heater efficiency standards, now taking effect in October 2027, will require a transition to high-efficiency condensing technology and phase out many traditional non-condensing systems. Facility managers will need to approach water heating as an integrated system rather than a standalone piece of equipment, accounting for factors such as venting, condensate management, controls, redundancy and temperature stability. Compliance will involve more than replacing old equipment, as many existing buildings will require infrastructure upgrades and closer collaboration among facility teams, engineers and manufacturers to achieve both efficiency and operational performance goals. As maintenance and engineering managers continue to navigate rising operational demands, aging infrastructure and evolving sustainability goals, a major regulatory shift is on the horizon that will significantly impact the way hot water systems are designed, installed and managed in institutional and commercial facilities. The latest commercial water-heater efficiency standards from the U.S.
Read This » Wildfire Smoke Buildings: Why Time and Distance Matterey Takeaways: The impact of wildfire smoke on contaminants and structures is largely governed by the processes that determine the way contaminants are emitted, dispersed, transformed and deposited. Understanding impact zones helps facility managers translate environmental science into practical expectations for building conditions and facility response. Because the impact of wildfire smoke can vary widely, a structured, data-driven process provides the most reliable path forward. Wildfire smoke events are becoming an increasingly common reality across many regions, creating new challenges for facility managers and those responsible for maintaining safe, operational institutional and commercial facilities.
Read This » The Future of Accessibility in Senior Care Facilitiesnbsp; Accessibility isn’t just a checklist — it’s a human experience, and as America’s population ages, the conversation around accessibility is becoming impossible to ignore.
Read This » Check Out NFMT West's Vegas-Themed General Session!e’ve all heard the familiar phrase, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” As the hosts of NFMT West on Nov.
Read This » Getting More Value from a Facility Condition Assessmento ensure a facility condition assessment delivers the intended benefits, managers need to take key steps to prepare.
Read This » Managing Rising HVAC Energy Costsacilities managers are under growing pressure as energy costs continue to rise.
Read This » Data Centers: Enhancing Sustainability, Efficiency with Liquid Coolingey Takeaways: The rise of AI workloads is driving a major shift from traditional air cooling to hybrid and liquid-cooling systems, as compute densities now far exceed the capabilities of conventional data center cooling approaches. Modern liquid-cooling technologies, such as cooling distribution units (CDUs), provide scalable, modular solutions that help data centers manage the extreme heat loads generated by AI training and inference applications. As liquid cooling becomes more widespread, evolving industry standards, commissioning practices and collaboration among manufacturers, operators and organizations are essential to ensure reliable, efficient and sustainable data center operations. Maintaining strict environmental control has been critical to data center performance and reliability since the 1950s, when early mainframe computers required tight temperature limits to prevent failures, especially in defense applications where downtime impacted critical operations. By the 1960s and early 1970s, mainframes evolved from classified military systems into commercial platforms.
Read This » Is Work-Life Balance Dead or Alive?ey Takeaways: Work-life balance in facilities management is evolving into “work-life integration,” with younger generations — especially Millennials and Gen Z — prioritizing flexibility, mental health, remote work options, and overall life fulfillment over traditional career advancement.
Read This » How Boiler Room Technology Has Evolvedne of the defining challenges in today’s boiler rooms is the growing complexity of the systems themselves.
Read This »© 2026 NFMT. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy